(ntrod. EARLY LABOURS AND INSTRUCTION. 3 



years of his life held the office of deacon of an independent 

 church in Hamilton. He deserved my lasting gratitude for 

 presenting me from infancy with a consistent example of piety 

 like that which is so beautifully portrayed in Bums' ' Cottar's 

 Saturday night.' He died in February, 1850, in peaceful hope 

 of mercy through the death of our Lord and Saviour. I was 

 then on my way below Zumbo, anticipating no greater plea- 

 sure than sitting by his cottage fire and telling him my travels. 

 I revere his memory. 



The earliest recollection of my mother recalls a picture often 

 seen among the Scottish poor — that of the anxious housewife 

 striving to make both ends meet. At the age of ten I went 

 to the factory as a " piecer." With a part of my first w 

 wages I purchased Euddiman's ' Eudiments of Latin,' and 

 studied that language for many years with unabated ardour, 

 at an evening school which met between the hours of eight 

 and ten. I continued my labours when I got home till twelve 

 o'clock, or later, if my mother did not interfere by snatching 

 the books out of my hands. I had to be back in the factory 

 by six in the morning, and my work lasted, with intervals for 

 breakfast and dinner, till eight o'clock at night. I read in 

 this way many of the classical authors, and knew Yirgil and 

 Horace better at sixteen than I do now. Our schoolmaster 

 was supported in part by the company ; he was attentive and 

 kind, and so moderate in his charges that all who wished for 

 education could obtain it. Some of my schoolfellows are now 

 in positions far above what appeared likely then; and if the 

 system were established in England, it would prove a never- 

 ending blessing to the poor. 



I read everything I could lay my hands on except novels. 

 Scientific works and books of travels were my especial delighl 

 though my father, believing, with many of his time who ought 

 to have known better, that the former were inimical to 

 religion, would have preferred to see me poring over the 

 'Cloud of Witnesses,' or Boston's 'Fourfold State.' My 

 difference of opinion reached the point of open rebellion, and 

 his last application of the rod was on my refusal to peruse 

 Wilberforce's ' Practical Christianity.' This dislike to religious 

 reading continued for years ; but having lighted on those 

 admirable works of Dr. Thomas Dick, ' The Philosophy of 



